Steven Mosher | June 2, 2013 at 7:39 pm |
Is it the GWPF, or Peiser? https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/composition-division .. or mine is.
If I’m saying David Rose has exhibited bad faith while representing the GWPF position, and the GWPF policy of others than Peiser on secret funding supports a case for bad faith, then of course neither of these is a position of Peiser. But wasn’t Peiser talking about and behalf of the whole GWPF on these matters, as was Rose, as were those setting the policy of secrecy?
This is neither here nor there, of course, in addressing an ‘assumes bad faith’ weakness in an otherwise powerful case; I admit to a gloss, given the patent bad faith of the Peiser argument and the GWPF track record, and I admit to not needing to have gone there either way.
The plain fact is we’re both skeptics, and we both function on principles that demand deeper scrutiny of claims. This isn’t assuming bad faith. This is more like glasnost. I am performing the service for the GWPF that not so long ago you yourself said Marcott et al ought thank their critics for. Sauce goose. Sauce gander.
So yes, I’d like more context for clarity. Footnotes do no harm, if they want to make their presentation more accessible for those not crazed by details, while removing ambiguity. You aren’t a little interested by the high level of ambiguity, considering the history of the parties, if the whole point is to show where there is agreement? And agreement on the level of uncertainty, without exaggeration, would be rather key: if the GWPF position has huge uncertainty built in, and the dominant scientific view — whatever that is — has low uncertainty, how doesn’t that matter enough for a footnote?
And I have zero interest in showing good faith, or in being trusted. I invite skepticism of my arguments. I want skepticism of my arguments. I admire those who question the logic and research the fact and come to their own conclusion without reliance on the authority of strangers on a blog. Even if they suck at it, the few who do it with commitment to improving the discourse are rare gems.
In such spirit, I invite you to expand on how you find the GWPF premise and analyses good, beyond, ‘Yes.’
My approach has not been about my standards. My approach has been about I can’t know unambiguously what they’re saying from what they’ve written, or where one can know what they’re saying, they’re plain wrong on facts or reasoning. That’s hardly a personal standard. That’s more a universal standard.
So, no, the “good (enough) is the enemy of the perfect” fallacy does not apply. This is a case of the unclear obscures what is being said, the untrue needs identification as untrue, and the unwarranted false implication is the enemy of the naive reader.
Trivializing these principal objectives of any good faith participant in discourse as quibble is not supported. It’s true I do quibble, or more to the point I use quibbling to make points about things that aren’t quibbles. But it’s not true that I have no point rising in merit above quibble.
Also, it may be a quibble, but “The Man” in a lab is generally “The Martinet”. I’m okay with that.
